An Interview with the Founders of Accountants for Social Good

San Francisco, CA, December 16, 2011 --(PR.com)-- As microfinance evolves more professional organizations are getting involved and gaining traction. For a more inclusive engagements, two businessmen Justin Curzi and Chad Brubaker, the owners of the custom website outfits for Accountants, Emochila, are using their company’s platform to engage the accounting professionals into making a difference in microfinance through supports for Accountants for Social Good (ASG). ASG is a philanthropic establishment founded by Justin Curzi and Chad Brubaker. Blassys interviewed Mr. Curzi about the work and vision of ASG.

Blassys: "How did Accountants for Social Good get CPAs on board?"

Curzi: "The primary goal was education. Most people aren't keen to even the definition of microfinance and many needed to first understand 'what they were getting themselves into.' ASG heard that term a lot. Therefore, it was mostly a learning process, and the following step for them was being easy on the pocketbook. ASG thinks in letting people know that they can put at minimum $25 at risk, it's a nice way to let down people's guard when it comes to charity. ASG found that it's not that most people are not interested in charitable giving, but primarily that they don't know where their money is going. The personal nature of microfinance to be a great answer to that."

Blassys: "Does ASG earmark your financial contributions or the money is available to any entrepreneur?"

Curzi: "When people loan their assets, ASG certainly lets them choose whomever they feel they want to lend to. If they have a certain connection with a particular industry or particular region of the world, then ASG wants to utilize that connection in hopes that in the future they engage themselves even more. When ASG donates as a firm, they usually 'spread the wealth' so to speak, and put small donations to many different entrepreneurs. They don't really discriminate by region or anything, as they just want to see our loans doing as much good as possible."

Blassys: "How does Accountants for Social Good know that your donation is impacting the lives of the borrowers?"

Curzi: "This is kind of hard, because officially ASG has never spoken to nor seen (other than photos) any of the people to whom they are lending. They do know that the repayment rate from Kiva is in the upwards of 98%, which is astoundingly high. ASG can only assume that, for the most part, the loans are being paid back because they're seeing the loan repayments hitting the account (which they turn around and re-loan right away, by the way). Overall, ASG has to assume that our loans are succeeding in giving people in the developing world the means to establish their businesses."

Blassys: "What does ASG plan to be doing in the future?"

Curzi: "Right now, they feel that slow and steady wins the race. It's really too early to put any real initiatives into place, other than to just get people involved and educated. In the future, with the CPA industry, it would be wonderful if CPAs became so engaged that they passed the news onto Their clients; and the general public. CPAs have a very close relationship with practically every small business in the United States. ASG believes that would be a wonderful revelation, but for now, they're simply happy with seeing new people join the ASG Kiva Team."

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